OSDev.org

mystran wrote: Three things I like about Firefox:

- Find is not a dialog!

Yeah, Firefox's find function is much better than IE's.

-Stephen

Not if you have the google toolbar

Calum wrote: Not if you have the google toolbar

If I install all possible programs I can find on windows, I can do more with windows than with linux. Does it have any relevance?

Googlebar + IE != IE. Compare apples with apples, pears with pears, browsers without extensions (ff) with browsers without extensions (ie), browsers with extensions (ff + adblock + ...) with browsers with extensions (ie + googlebar + yahoobar). In these fair comparisons, I will choose FF over IE, and FF with stuff over IE with stuff.

If only because running IE is quite hard on Linux

Candy wrote: Googlebar + IE != IE. Compare apples with apples, pears with pears, browsers without extensions (ff) with browsers without extensions (ie), browsers with extensions (ff + adblock + ...) with browsers with extensions (ie + googlebar + yahoobar).

Not fair, Candy. That would mean people wanting to start yet another "Windows vs. Linux" thread would have to compare WinXP with, say, the default setup of SuSE 8.0 (because that was released at around the same time).

;D

Solar wrote: Not fair, Candy. That would mean people wanting to start yet another "Windows vs. Linux" thread would have to compare WinXP with, say, the default setup of SuSE 8.0 (because that was released at around the same time).

That's not entirely true. If you want to compare suse 8.0 with winxp, you must take the stock one. If you want to compare suse 10 (or whatever, I never use it), patch winxp up to sp2. Still keeps it kind of fair.

Candy wrote: Still keeps it kind of fair.

Does it? Is it fair to allow comparison between a Windows from 2001 with a Linux distribution years younger, just because that distribution did have a release in the meantime (release early, release often) while Windows didn't (every release is a royal PITA because of compatibility and maintenance issues)?

Or wouldn't we have to wait until Windows Longhorn is released before we can make another "fair" comparison between what's state-of-the-art?

Of course the Firefox browser can be shipped with hundreds of features prepackaged. Of course Firefox can be released anew whenever a line of source is changed.

But that is because Firefox is "free" software, which can be packaged with whatever other "free" package the maintainers like, to a community living by the creed "release early, release often".

If you would want to package IE with popular plug-ins, you'd have to strike deals with whomever wrote the plug-ins, clarifying on brand awareness, liabilities of timely delivery and stable performance, maintenance of future versions, and don't forget that Microsoft caters to the professional, corporate market where every release of a new Internet Explorer version means significant costs spent on compatibility tests and roll-outs.

That is the TCO battlefield where Microsoft keeps scoring because the Linux evangelists can't grasp the concept that "free" software still has costs attached in a business environment.

But I'm seriously going OT here, and really should stop posting here for a while until my life and mind have stabilized again. :-\

Solar wrote:

Candy wrote: Still keeps it kind of fair.

Does it? Is it fair to allow comparison between a Windows from 2001 with a Linux distribution years younger, just because that distribution did have a release in the meantime (release early, release often) while Windows didn't (every release is a royal PITA because of compatibility and maintenance issues)?

Or wouldn't we have to wait until Windows Longhorn is released before we can make another "fair" comparison between what's state-of-the-art?

My point was that you don't compare the 2001 winxp. You compare the 2004 WinxpSP2. That is, the most recent version including bugfixes.

But I'm seriously going OT here, and really should stop posting here for a while until my life and mind have stabilized again. :-\

Good luck with the life & mind stuff.... If you need any help, you know where to find me.

My point was that Windows Service Packs are usually collections of bugfixes and some incremental improvements, not anything significantly new (like a 2.6 kernel, KDE 3, Firefox browser...) - because that's the fundamental difference in the release policies.

1. It's not software, or developing of it, or it's features that cost, it's technical support. Linux is free, but if you have a real problem with it, you can really only count on community around it. When commercial distributions of Linux are sold, they mostly have better technical support than free Linuxes. If you use Windows, you can always count on KB (self-service) and assistance over the phone or the internet.
2. If one really needs to compare Suse 10 and Windows SP2, one needs to keep in mind, that SP2 mostly fixed security issues and that one really can't compare features of those two.

Possibly I've changed something (my Firefox is more bloated than IE) but I believe find also appears if you don't have anything selected - text box/radio button etc - and you just type.

Indeed, unless you specifically disable it, typing something will start the search. I believe you can change (not from menu anymore it seems) whether "type-ahead" will search full text or links only. If you want to search full text, you can start that with / and if you want to search links only, you can (IIRC) start that with '. Or something like that anyway.

Ok I can see that Firefox has lots of support here... After reading all of these posts I may just switch... Just out of interest, what is Deer Park? Is it a new Firefox thing, or something completely different, cos when I looked at it, it looked fairly similar to FF...

Deer Park is the codename for the Alpha version of the next firefox release.

-Stephen